Chapter 224 — Various Mutated Animals
Luo Xun had been feeling quite speechless lately. Ever since the Otaku Team returned from their last excursion with a mountain of gaming consoles and discs, the entire squad had truly lived up to its name. Honestly, when he went downstairs today yawning and saw even little Xinran sitting at the breakfast table with her head down, clicking and tapping away furiously on a handheld console, a wave of guilt and utter helplessness washed over him.
What gave him an even deeper sense of sin was the fact that last night, he himself had dragged Yan Fei along to play a fighting game on the newly installed sixty-inch TV in their room. They had kept at it until two in the morning, and in the end, it was only because Yan Fei directly turned off the game and the TV to drag him to bed…
In Yan Fei’s words: You were more focused and serious playing that game than when the two of us do our usual exercises. This is completely unacceptable.
“I’ve decided… the day after tomorrow, we’re going out to look for furniture.” Once they had furniture, everyone would be inspired to start decorating and designing their own little spaces. That way, the team wouldn’t pour all of their remaining energy into their tireless gaming.
Luo Xun rubbed his chin as he made this final call.
There was truly no alternative. Most of the critical chores at the base had already been sorted out. Right now, even if they wanted to fill the remaining empty underground planting rooms, they would first need a sufficient stockpile of seeds!
The day they returned, the moment they finished hauling their cargo into the storage rooms, a predatory scramble for the gaming consoles and discs had erupted. Afterward, everyone moved at least one of the large, newly retrieved TVs into their respective bedrooms, grabbed a temporary high-spec laptop, and retreated to their rooms to lose themselves in leisure.
Over the past two days of hiding indoors, they would get out of bed in the morning to tend to the crops, but they spent virtually all of their remaining hours playing games in their rooms. If this trajectory continued, they would truly transform into total otakus—and worst of all, gaming otakus, who had the absolute lowest chance of survival in the apocalypse!
For the sake of everyone’s health, Luo Xun, as the captain, had to set a proper example and establish a concrete plan for the future!
The moment the words fell from Luo Xun’s lips, they received the enthusiastic backing of the entire group.
“Awesome, awesome! It would be best if we could haul back a few proper beds. We’ve been sleeping on makeshift mats on the floor every single day, and it’s really uncomfortable.”
“We need wardrobes and cabinets, too. The bedrooms are an absolute mess right now, and there are so many things we can’t organize properly.”
“I want a TV stand! And a rack to hold my gaming consoles! And a computer desk!”
“A beanbag chair…”
Luo Xun hadn’t expected his proposal to receive such a raucous welcome, but upon closer thought, it made sense. Until now, the vast majority of them were still sleeping on temporary metal bed frames fabricated out of metal scrap. Although laying out blankets and bedding made them look no different from a regular bed, the reality was that their household supply of bedding wasn’t particularly abundant. The bed boards were incredibly hard, and if the mattress padding was too thin, sleeping on it was truly a miserable experience.
However, Luo Xun also secretly suspected that while they might find some furniture on this run, as for things like blankets and bedding… they should probably give up on that dream.
After resting for another two days, Luo Xun and the team rolled out of bed early in the morning, packed their gear, and climbed into their respective vehicles to head out once more after finishing breakfast.
As usual, the convoy consisted of two small electric cars and two large trucks. Locking up the subterranean tunnel entrance behind them, they rolled out onto the main thoroughfare, only to stare speechlessly at the sheer explosion in the number of wild birds floating across the distant “lakes.”
“…Do you want to eat foie gras?” Luo Xun suddenly rubbed his chin, nudging Yan Fei beside him with his elbow.
Yan Fei cast a glance out the window, before turning to look at his partner with an amused smile. “You want to eat it? If you do, we’ll figure out a way to capture one on our way back.”
When those two wolves wanted to capture prey, they still had to clumsily rely on physical brawling, appearing rather inept at utilizing their superpowers flexibly. But Luo Xun and his team were different; if they wanted to capture waterfowl floating in standing water, there were more than enough methods at their disposal.
Although these birds possessed wings and could fly, if they utilized their superpowers discreetly to ensnare them, the creatures wouldn’t be able to display such agile maneuvers.
Mutated animals were not zombies; even if they spotted Luo Xun’s vehicles from a distance, or caught sight of the team stepping down to move around, they wouldn’t actively rush over to court death. The psychotic mutated predators that had aggressively launched unprovoked assaults on their convoy previously had mostly emerged during the dead of winter. In the winter, with heavy snow blocking the thoroughfares, those predators had likely been driven feral with starvation. Naturally, they were desperate to lunge and gnaw on anything that moved—let alone a target as massive as the trucks Luo Xun and his team were driving.
The two plotted stealthily inside the cab regarding how to cook a goose to maximize the savory flavor of its meat, even debating the technical dilemma of how to discern which goose possessed a larger liver.
The rest of the crew in the trailing vehicles seemed to be debating identical culinary questions. Although their freezers currently held a substantial reserve of meat, it consisted entirely of pork and beef. While they raised quails at home—and the flavor was excellent—casually bagging a wild avian species to upgrade their dining table from time to time seemed like a highly attractive option.
Amidst their lively brainstorming, the convoy rolled toward their objective—a large furniture plaza situated within a commercial district of a township about the size of a small county seat, right along the peripheral edge of City A.
Currently, the resources inside the urban center were the primary targets for the major bases, which paradoxically meant that these remote, peripheral areas were far more likely to still hold pristine reserves of supplies.
Luo Xun and the team had selected this coordinate after a meticulous screening process carried out in between their gaming sessions over the past two days.
The geographical location of this township was relatively remote, yet it technically fell under the jurisdiction of City A. Following the onset of the apocalypse, the survivors living in this vicinity would have immediately fled to seek sanctuary at the nearest base. For the residents here, several of City A’s bases weren’t particularly far away, so they would have rushed over the moment they caught wind of the news. Even if they had pillaged the local supermarkets for food before departing, the percentage of furniture items looted would be remarkably low.
Secondly, apart from the closest City A base, there were no alternative bases operating within a short radius of this trajectory. Following the military’s sweeping bombardment of the surrounding sectors, it was highly improbable that survivors from alternative regions would make a dedicated trip out here to gather resources.
If Luo Xun’s deductions held true—provided their objective hadn’t been demolished by an external force and hadn’t been completely submerged under water during the massive rainstorm a few days ago—they were guaranteed to reap a harvest!
Even if the facility had taken in water, Luo Xun and the team would still be able to salvage some usable items. Most importantly, the location wasn’t exceptionally far from their new base—at the very least, it was vastly closer than the digital mall they had visited last time.
After driving for a little over a day, the group felt as though they were traversing an absolute wilderness. It wasn’t until a full day and a half of driving had slipped away that the soaring concrete silhouettes of urban high-rises came into view once more.
Over the past few years, whenever developers constructed new residential properties across the various cities, they possessed a massive preference for high-rises fitted with elevators, starting at twelve stories minimum, and often building entire communities reaching roughly twenty stories. This was especially true for the newly developed residential complexes flanking the peripheral edges of the urban core.
Consequently, Luo Xun and the team caught sight of those towering residential structures from a considerable distance away.
Currently, the facades of those concrete high-rises were heavily blanketed by green vegetation. A portion consisted of creepers and ivy possessing ultra-aggressive climbing capabilities, while the rest consisted of wild grass seeds blown up from god knows where, taking root and sprouting within the structural fractures of the concrete walls.
However, what truly arrested the attention of Luo Xun and his team was not the vegetation or the concrete high-rises themselves, but rather something resting atop the towers…
“Brother Luo, are those bird nests up there?”
“Brother Luo, why do those things look so much like eagle nests to me?!”
“It’s flying, it’s flying! It’s a bird… an eagle! It’s definitely an eagle!!”
A colossal black creature unfurled its wings atop the roof of a twenty-story building, launching into a majestic soar from the absolute apex of the high-rise. Those expansive wings, that powerful, agile form… Luo Xun recognized that even if the entity wasn’t strictly an eagle, it was at least a mutated raptor of the falcon species.
Whether it was an eagle or a falcon, if they ended up targeted by these predators because the creatures couldn’t locate alternative food sources, it would not be a pleasant development at all!!
“…How large is a normal eagle supposed to be? This creature looks like it could directly lift a full-grown human into the air, right?” Luo Xun felt a trace of numbness creep across his scalp. Because the distance was quite substantial, he couldn’t accurately evaluate the absolute mass of the eagle, but he knew that while its size wasn’t completely cartoonish, it possessed more than enough power to snatch a human and carry them into the sky.
Yan Fei remarked, “I don’t know what specific breed it belongs to, but before the apocalypse, our region shouldn’t have hosted any eagle species of an exceptionally massive size.” For a city that didn’t even host bats naturally, how could raptors of this caliber suddenly emerge?
While the two were conversing, a sudden, piercing eagle shriek echoed from directly overhead. The sharp screech left everyone feeling a trace of trepidation in their hearts, and even the puppy inside the cab curiously craned its neck, staring wide-eyed toward the glass roof.
The convoy ground to a complete halt, everyone silently tracking the movements of the eagle in the sky. They watched as it circled twice in the upper atmosphere before soaring off in an alternative direction. Only then did the group let out a soft sigh of relief.
Wang Duo’s voice crackled through the walkie-talkie: “Boss, are we still proceeding inside?”
“Move out,” Luo Xun ordered with decisive execution after a brief moment of thought. Just now, everyone had merely been stunned to witness a creature they had rarely seen outside of a zoo before the apocalypse. But as long as these raptors didn’t actively mount an assault on their convoy, Luo Xun and the team had zero intention of provoking them.
Exactly like the two wolves ranging near their base, or the flock of waterfowl that had newly claimed the flooded fields—Luo Xun and his team had always tacitly accepted the presence of these animals. As long as the other side didn’t actively cross them, no one would go out of their way to provoke them unless they were hunting to fill their stomachs. With so many mutated animals roaming the earth after the apocalypse, if they went out of their way to pick fights with every single one, it would be pure, mindless suicide.
Once the eagle had soared completely out of sight, Luo Xun’s convoy resumed its march. Steering the vehicles into the township that had lain desolate for two full years, the group finally located their targeted objective—a specific furniture plaza.
“…Do we even need to bother going inside?” Looking at the structural condition of the building up front, Han Li couldn’t help but ask out loud.
Luo Xun let out a helpless, deep breath. “Let’s step inside to take a look.” Although he didn’t harbor much optimism himself.
The main structure of the furniture plaza was still standing, but over half of the walls and roofing had collapsed into rubble. Factoring in the massive rainstorm that had just pounded the region a few days ago… Luo Xun truly didn’t hold much optimism for this facility, merely hoping that this particular furniture merchant maintained a detached storage warehouse that held pristine goods they could put to use.
This furniture plaza primarily showcased home furnishings, and the items displayed inside were entirely floor samples and decorative props. With a massive downpour crashing down like that, one could easily visualize what an absolute charnel house the interior had become. But even without the recent heavy rain, there was no telling how long the roof had been collapsed, and the inventory inside had likely rotted past redemption long ago.
If they were going to force their way inside just to salvage warped, ruined boards, Luo Xun honestly felt it would be far better for the group to just fell some wild trees together, which would at least yield pristine timber they could use to craft furniture from scratch.
Thank you for reading 🙂 I hope you all liked my translations. If you enjoyed my work, please consider buying me a Ko-Fi 😉
